The difference between sheep and goats

Out with the Year of the Horse and in with the new animal for the Chinese lunar year: the goat. Or is it the sheep? Here we take a look at both.

February 19 marks the new lunar year according to the Chinese calendar, and man oh man has the mascot been stirring up debate of for us westerners. “Year of the Sheep!” swear the sheep stalwarts; “Year of the Goat!” goad the goat devoted.

The problem is – and note, this isn’t a problem in China – that the word for the eighth animal in the 12-year parade of critters is “yang,” which in Mandarin doesn’t specify between members of the Caprinae subfamily, like “goat” and “sheep” do in English. Some people are even throwing rams into the mix. As The New York Times points out, “Without further qualifiers, yang might mean any such hoofed animal that eats grass and bleats.” Pray-tell, the uncertainty of it is driving us specificity seekers nuts!

But rest assured.

“Few ordinary Chinese are troubled by the sheep-goat distinction,” Xinhua, China’s main state-run news agency, said in its report on the debate. “However, the ambiguity has whipped up discussion in the West.”

So if you plan on celebrating the new year, the bottom line is this: take your pick. To help you out, we’ve outlined out the differences between the two. Will you choose Team Goat or Team Sheep?

The genes

While both hail from the subfamily Caprinae, sheep and goats diverge at the genus level and arrive as distinct species. Sheep (Ovis aries) have 54 chromosomes; goats (Capra aegagrus hircus) have 60. Sheep–goat hybrids – yes, a geep or shoat – do exist, but they are rare. Behold the baby geep below. Awww!

Grazers versus browsers

A main difference between the two is how they forage. Sheep are grazers; they ramble slowly eating short plants close to the ground. Goats are browsers; they look for leaves, twigs, vines, and shrubs. And their agility allows them to attain charming positions in pursuit of their forage, as the goat kids display below.

“Because they browse, goats spend a lot of time investigating things. They are forever nibbling on and eating things,” Cathy Dwyer, a professor at Scotland's Rural College, tells NPR. “So they have more exploratory, investigate behavior because of their feeding style. They appear to be more interactive with the environment, and they are very engaging animals.”

Personality

Because of a goat’s natural curiosity and independence, they can tend to get into more trouble than sheep. Sheep are, yes, sheepish. They have a very strong flocking instinct and become agitated when separated from their posse.

What they wear

Beards and kissers

Some goats have beards, sheep don’t. But some sheep have manes. Sheep have an upper lip that is divided by a distinct philtrum, goats don’t.

Horns

Most goats have horns, many sheep, but not all, are naturally without horns. Goat horns are narrower and usually straighter; sheep horns tend to be thicker and curved, tending to loop around on the sides of their heads, like a ruminant tribute to Princess Leia.

You can watch this naturalist from the Massachusetts Audubon Society's Drumlin Farm explain more in the video below.